Update at 10:44 a.m.: Have confirmed with Rep. Turner that no site in Collin County has been chosen.

Original item at 9:25 a.m.: AUSTIN — Collin County would snag the state’s seventh – and the Dallas-Fort Worth region’s third – sleek, large, automated driver’s license office under the state budget approved by a House panel Tuesday.

Over the next two years, the Department of Public Safety would add only one new “mega center” similar to those it opened just over two years ago in Garland and far east Fort Worth.

DPS officials, asked by House Appropriations Committee members to identify which areas most needed relief from long waits, chose Collin County for a mega center and 11 locations outside North Texas for smaller new offices, said Rep. Sylvester Turner, a Houston Democrat who is the panel’s vice chairman.

“It will be a significant plus for everyone,” he said.

The exact location in Collin County hasn’t been chosen, Turner said. That will be DPS’ call, he said.

At mega centers, drivers can pre-register online or simply show up for licenses, testing and renewals. The centers usually are cavernous – 24,000 square feet.

Walk-ins can use electronic kiosks to get started. Customers also can opt for a cellphone alert when their time is near, and use a mobile option to move their reservation if they’re running late.

The Houston area has two mega centers. Greater San Antonio and Austin each have one.

Rep. Helen Giddings, D-Dallas

Rep. Helen Giddings, D-Dallas, said Dallas County needs one. Her grandson recently had to wait days to get an appointment for his first driver’s test at a Dallas bureau, she recounted.

“People were having to wait for what seemed like a very long time to get in,” she said.

The House panel approved $153.5 million for the Driver License Improvement Program – nearly a 50 percent increase from last session’s funding. DPS would hire 222 new employees.

The push to end long waits began with a $64.1 million investment during the 2011 session, when schools and health care programs absorbed deep budget cuts.

The committee’s recommendation is only a first step toward winning a mega center for Collin County. The Senate’s starting point budget did not increase driver’s license customer-service upgrades from last session’s $103 million.

The full House won’t take up the House panel’s $209.8 billion, two-year budget until March 31. Spending of all funds, including federal money, would increase by 3.8 percent over the current cycle.

The Appropriations Committee passed its budget on a vote of 24-0. It would spend $104.6 billion of state general-purpose revenue, a 9.9-percent increase over last session. However, it would leave on the table $8.4 billion of general-purpose revenue forecast by Comptroller Glenn Hegar in January. The plan spends all but about $2 billion lawmakers may spend under a 1978 constitutional spending limit.

“We’re looking at approximately $19.4 billion of unspent dollars in the state of Texas,” said Turner, noting there would be $11 billion of rainy-day dollars as well as the $8.4 billion not tapped. “We ought to seriously consider whether or not we fund adequately the major priorities,” such as roads.

Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, said under current school finance law, 33 percent of school districts would receive less money than they did before 2011 spending cuts. Sources close to the committee, though, said that doesn’t factor in its addition of $2.2 billion to state aid to schools, which would depress the 33 percent number.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman John Otto, R-Dayton

Committee Chairman John Otto, R-Dayton, though, said most of the $8.4 billion in unspent general revenue was raised for specific purposes and can’t be shifted to roads or schools. He said House leaders want to add some spending, such as propping up a college tuition savings plan, in negotiations with the Senate.

“We’re not done,” Otto said. In a statement, he called it “a conservative budget that lives within the means of this state while leaving room for meaningful tax relief.” Both chambers are poised to cut taxes by more than $4 billion.

Compared with the Senate’s emerging budget, the House’s would spend more on public schools, less on border security and about the same on highways, though only in the short term. Senators have advanced a proposal shifting car sales tax money from the general fund to roads, starting in 2018.

Senate budget writers, though, are still meeting in informal, often private work group huddles. The two chambers’ differences have yet to emerge fully.

On employee compensation and benefits, Medicaid doctor pay and economic development incentive programs, the House committee took some bold steps, its leaders said. Here’s a more detailed look at those, and the likelihood senators will agree:

Gov. Greg Abbott keeps walking a fine line between past criticism of Texas’ business incentives programs and his current role as a chief executive trying to promote the state’s economy.

In last year’s campaign, Abbott criticized the pet incentive programs of his predecessor, former Gov. Rick Perry – the scandal-plagued Emerging Technology Fund and the much-criticized Texas Enterprise Fund.

Since taking office, however, Abbott has signaled he needs some deal-closing money as he woos Fortune 500 companies and fights with other states’ governors for big new manufacturing plants, research and development labs and relocated or expanded corporate headquarters.

On Tuesday, an Abbott aide appeared before Senate budget writers and said the new Republican governor wants to mend, not end, the giveaways of taxpayer money.

Stacey Napier, director of administration in the governor’s office, testified before the Senate Finance Committee that Abbott wants “more transparency and more effective processes” in the Enterprise Fund. She noted that last week, he proposed ditching the tech fund and splitting its unspent $110 million between a revamped version of the Enterprise Fund and a new Abbott proposal to help state universities recruit top scientists and engineers from other states – and, possibly, from in-state private universities.

Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville

“Governor Abbott has said that the … Enterprise Fund as it has previously been structured does need to change,” Napier said.

However, she added, “He does believe that in order to be competitive with other states, we should have a deal closing fund.”

Both initial budgets filed by GOP leaders of the House and Senate would deny the governor’s office any new money for the tech fund and the Enterprise Fund. The two chambers, though, have very different approaches to how to let Abbott handle the two funds’ unspent carryover money – estimated as currently about $53 million for Enterprise Fund and $110 million for Emerging Tech.

The Senate budget would let Abbott spend all of the “unexpended balances,” while the House’s would free only the amounts needed to cover past commitments – about $30 million for the Enterprise Fund and $32 million for the tech fund.

“We do agree with the decisions made by Senate Bill 2 to only appropriate unexpended balances for both of those,” Napier said.

Whether that means Abbott prefers the Senate’s version is unclear. Abbott spokesmen did not immediately respond to a question on that subject.

Assuming lawmakers accept his plan for the two funds, the Senate budget would give him nearly three times as much money to spend as the House’s. He’d end up with more than $100 million available to spend from the Enterprise Fund, and a fancy new higher education initiative, to boot. It would be worth about $55 million.

Two Republican senators on the Finance Committee clashed over whether the business incentive programs should be continued.

Freshman Sen. Paul Bettencourt of Houston said they amount to picking winners in the economy, which he said gives small and medium size business owners heartburn.

However, Sen. Robert Nichols of Jacksonville warned that if Abbott is denied any incentives money to throw around, it would amount to unilateral disarmament in a very competitive game.

He suggested using half the fund’s uncommitted cash, $55 million, for a new effort to recruit top science and engineering researchers as faculty at state universities. Abbott has lamented that none of the top 10 public universities in the country are in Texas.

“Texas will be home of the research centers and great minds that will transform the next generation,” he said in a written statement.

The tech fund’s remaining $55 million would go toward traditional business subsidies distributed through Perry’s pet Texas Enterprise Fund — though only after lawmakers make the deal-closing kitty more transparent, Abbott said.

Since taking office last week, Abbott has moved to separate himself from Perry, though their conservative philosophies aren’t hugely different. In naming several university regents, Abbott strongly hinted that he would not replicate Perry’s assault on what the former governor derided as flabbiness and waste on state university campuses.

Abbott announced changes to state contracting procedures, a response to press reports of procurement shenanigans in social services programs. He also repudiated Perry’s policy of keeping governor’s office emails, which are subject to public disclosure laws, for just seven days. Abbott upped that to 30 days.

Dodging criticism

University of Texas political scientist Jim Henson said Abbott wants to duck some of the criticisms that clung to Perry, such as that he practiced “crony capitalism” and ruled with a brash and often secretive style. Abbott also seeks to shore up support for a reworked but still aggressive state approach to economic development, he said.

“It’s a subtle move in that direction without being directly critical of his predecessor. He’ll leave that to the commentators and the observers,” said Henson, director of UT’s Texas Politics Project. “But it’s hard not to see it as a response to the discussion that plagued the Perry administration, particularly in their latter years.”

In all states, incoming governors try to “rebrand” themselves as distinct from predecessors, in style if not also in substance, Henson said. But it’s particularly glaring in Texas because, after 14 years of Perry, it’s a novelty.

“We’re not used to seeing this because it’s been so long since we’ve seen a transition,” he said.

By wanting to ditch the Emerging Technology Fund and overhaul the Texas Enterprise Fund, Abbott is tampering with two signature Perry programs — as well as responding to fierce criticism of both.

Awards questioned

Critics have blasted some of the awards made from the two funds, both run out of the governor’s office, as rewards for Perry’s political donors.

In 2010, The Dallas Morning News reported that more than $16 million from the tech fund was awarded to companies with investors or officers who were large campaign donors to Perry. During last year’s campaign, Abbott said he opposed government “picking winners and losers” in the economy, though he was vague about whether the two funds should be retained.

Perry, who is mounting another presidential bid, has rejected the criticism. He said that the programs have benefited Texas’ economy and that politics didn’t influence his decisions.

Under Abbott’s plan, which would require the Legislature’s approval, half of the abolished tech fund’s estimated $110 million in cash would go to a newly established “Governor’s University Research Initiative.”

In his statement, Abbott said the initiative “would help fund the recruitment of Nobel laureates and members of the National Academy [or equivalent] to Texas public universities.” The raids could be staged only on faculty from state universities outside Texas, his statement said. The schools could seek a dollar-for-dollar matching grant from the new initiative.

Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp called Abbott’s plan “a brilliant way to move life-changing and game-changing research to Texas.”

Cash redistribution

Abbott said the tech fund’s stock holdings should be handed off to finance professionals who manage short-term cash balances at a unit overseen by the comptroller’s office. Then, the remaining half of its cash should go to the deal-closing Texas Enterprise Fund, he said.

He cautioned that lawmakers should overhaul the Enterprise Fund to increase its “transparency, accountability, efficiency and effectiveness.” He offered no details.

Texas Association of Business chief Bill Hammond called the Enterprise Fund “critical in continuing Texas’ lead in job creation.”

Dan Patrick, shown speaking to the Texas GOP convention in June, said Friday he has the backing of "virtually every business association of any size" in Texas.

Sen. Dan Patrick says business is in his corner. Responding to news reports of possible inroads made by his Democratic opponent, Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, Patrick on Friday held a rare press conference to dismiss the notion that any significant chunk of Texas business prefers Van de Putte.

“In this race for lieutenant governor, there’s not a debate, there’s not an argument, there’s not a discussion on who the business community is supporting … and it’s because of our pro-business record,” said Patrick, the Republican nominee for the state’s No. 2 elective office.

Patrick, a tea party-backed insurgent, toppled establishment Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst in a May runoff.

He appeared at a news conference in Austin flanked by leaders of general business associations and groups representing specific industry sectors, such as manufacturers, builders, refiners and bankers.

Chief among the prizes he displayed was Will Newton, director of the state chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business, a small business group.

In a story last month, online political news outlet Texas Tribune paraphrased Newton as saying there was no telling which of the two lieutenant governor candidates his 24,000 members would endorse because both had worked on its pet bills in the past.

On Friday, Newton said his membership “overwhelmingly asked us to endorse Sen. Patrick.” He cited the Houston lawmaker’s support for exempting most small businesses from the state’s business-franchise or “margins” tax and his advocacy of property-tax relief.

Patrick added his own partisan spin, casting Texas’ strong economy as the product of Republican leaders’ “conservative plan” on taxes, business regulations and lawsuit limits.

On Tuesday, former General Motors chief executive Ed Whitacre Jr. co-hosted a fundraiser for Democrat Leticia Van de Putte.

He noted that Van de Putte voted against a 2003 constitutional amendment about medical-malpractice suits. It capped at $250,000 the amount any doctor, hospital or other care provider must pay for non-economic damages, such as pain and suffering.

Van de Putte “would repeal it if she could,” Patrick said of the business-backed amendment.

Van de Putte spokesman Emmanuel Garcia countered that Patrick has called for repeal of Gov. Rick Perry’s deal-closing funds, the Texas Enterprise Fund and Emerging Technology Fund. Van de Putte supports preserving the funds, which Garcia said helped bring a Toyota pickup-truck factory to San Antonio, her hometown, and a rocket-launching facility that Space X plans to build in South Texas.

Garcia also noted that two high-profile Texas business executives — former General Motors chief executive Ed Whitacre Jr. and road builder H.B. Zachry Jr. — co-hosted a fundraiser for Van de Putte in San Antonio on Tuesday. Executives are worried about the quality of future workers, and they frown on Patrick’s support of more than $5 billion in budget cuts to public schools approved in 2011, Garcia said.

“If you care about business, then you care about the workforce — and that means you support neighborhood schools,” he said.

Patrick, though, said Republican leaders are providing a “bright future” for Texans worried about jobs and their children’s prospects. He noted that last year, as chairman of the Senate Education Committee, he successfully steered to passage a compromise bill that overhauled school testing and high school graduation requirements. The measure stresses preparation for careers as well as college, Patrick said.

“The ‘Big W,’ as I call it — the workforce of the future,” he said.

Patrick said that, contrary to published reports such as this one, which said he has taken a “stealth approach” to the fall campaign, he’s been on an intensive listening tour.

“Over the last several months, I’ve been the hardest working guy on the campaign trail,” he said, according to an audio tape of his Friday appearance, which the Houston Chronicle posted online here.

Since winning the runoff in May, though, Patrick has not run a TV ad. Until Friday, he had not held a press conference. And until reporters received word of the press conference late Thursday, his campaign had alerted the press about only one other Patrick appearance — a July 16 speech to a state gathering of the Future Farmers of America.

Updated at 12:55 p.m.: A spokesman says Gov. Rick Perry and his office will try to “move forward” the business-incentive programs, in consultation with legislators.

“Budgets as introduced are always a starting point and our office expects to have to make our case for important programs, just as other agencies have to make theirs,” said Josh Havens, Perry’s deputy press secretary. “Ultimately, the governor believes these incentive funds are important to our state’s economic strength and job creation prospects and we’ll work with lawmakers to see them move forward.”

Original item at 11:28 a.m.: Legislative leaders have proposed to give no new money for economic-development incentives over the next two years, effectively forcing Gov. Rick Perry to sell lawmakers on the programs, which are among his favorites.

A House official who briefed reporters Tuesday on the GOP leadership’s initial two-year budget plans said lawmakers question whether the Enterprise Fund, Emerging Technology Fund and film, TV and video-game incentives are delivering benefits as promised. In the Emerging Technology Fund in particular, the official said, House leaders want better accounting of which recipients of state money have gone bankrupt and which ones are thriving.

The tussle is hardly new. Last session, budget writers offered no new money to the deal-closing Enterprise Fund and the tech fund.

However, the scope of the questioning has grown wider. Last session, even amid making $12 billion of cuts to state programs, budget writers found $35 million for film, TV and video-game incentives. Not this time. Not so far. The Film Commission and the Texas Music Office would share $4.2 million in operations money but receive no grant funding under the House and Senate’s initial budgets.

On Monday, leaders announced they’re taking a similar approach — money just for current overhead, nothing for new grants — at the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. The troubled agency will have to be revamped to regain lawmakers’ trust, said Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst; Senate Finance Committee Chairman Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands; and House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie.

In a similar rebuff to Comptroller Susan Combs, who has championed a new Formula One race in Austin, the leaders inserted no new money for a Major Events fund. Last session, it received $35 million.

The enterprise and tech funds would be allowed to continue to draw down their “unexpended balances,” estimated at $7 million and $120 million respectively, the House official said.

“They can make their case for it,” the official said of Perry and Combs.

In a major difference between the two chambers’ initial budgets, the House also provides no money for standardized testing of public school students, while senators offer $98.4 million for the tests in 2014-2015.

The House is expected to eventually cough up money for a rejiggered accountability system in the schools, though it’s unclear what shape it will take, the official said.

Last week, Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, said he sees “near unanimity” in his chamber for a major re-do of the testing system. Straus said many teachers and parents complain the tests are taking too much time and pushing students to rote memorization, at the cost of broader comprehension of course subjects.

Speaker Joe Straus says he’s distressed over the latest disclosures about possible irregularities and favoritism at Texas’ cancer-fighting agency, though he’s confident several investigations now under way will be thorough.

Straus, R-San Antonio, said Wednesday that he and other lawmakers hope public confidence can be restored in the 10-year, $3 billion program to fight cancer that state voters approved in 2007.

“I’m sure we’ll get to the bottom of the issues there but yes, of course, there’s some very troubling concerns at that agency and a lot of things have changed there as a result of some reporting and some facts that none of us knew were out there,” he said after speaking to a group of Austin business leaders.

Straus noted that criminal and civil probes have been launched — and House budget writers will hold a hearing next week — to look into problems at the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas.

On Tuesday, the resignation of its executive director, Bill Gimson, became public. Since October, the institute’s chief scientific officer and chief commercialization officer also have resigned. Dozens of scientists who reviewed funding proposals also quit, with some expressing anxiety the agency’s grant-awarding process had become politicized. Last month, The Dallas Morning News reported that companies run by Dallas businessman David Shanahan got $12.8 million in grants after Shanahan and his associates gave $90,000 to the campaigns of Gov. Rick Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst. On Nov. 29, the institute disclosed it didn’t do required reviews before doling out $11 million to Peloton, a company on the campus of the UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Some emails related to the Peloton decisions are missing.

“The people of Texas voted overwhelmingly to support this important initiative that’s to try to cure cancer,” Straus said. “The public and the Legislature certainly want the program to be as strong as it can be and get past these troubling facts that have come out.”

Straus also was asked about last week’s New York Times story about the huge magnitude of Texas’ economic development deal-closing sweeteners, especially abatements that businesses get from having to pay local school property taxes. It followed years of reporting by The Dallas Morning News about two state funds Perry controls, the Enterprise Fund and the Emerging Technology Fund, and about fund recipients’ political giving to Perry’s campaigns.

Do lawmakers need to look at the incentives and improve transparency?

“Yeah, we do,” Straus replied. “There’s no doubt that we do. We always need to be looking at what we’re doing, to see if we can do things better.”

He noted that last session, the Legislature created a 12-member Select Committee on Economic Development, which includes some leading business owners and CEOs, to “develop objective criteria” for judging whether Texas’ financial incentives for new and existing companies are “appropriately sized and directed and administratively efficient.” The group met Wednesday. It’s rushing to meet a Jan. 1 deadline for producing a report.

Asked if Texas is overly generous in forking over corporate subsidies, Straus responded, “Texas, which has added 277,000 jobs in the last year, has a lot to be proud of. Are we doing everything right? Do we have everything in the right proportion? I don’t know. But that’s what some of these efforts … are to determine.”

Earlier this week, Straus drew a new opponent as he seeks a third term as speaker next month — Rep. David Simpson, R-Longview. Asked if he was surprised Simpson jumped in, displacing previous Straus opponent Bryan Hughes, the speaker said Simpson had appeared happy during last month’s new member orientation session and recent social gatherings.

“I’m never surprised at the Texas House,” Straus said.

He said that he has support from “a healthy majority” of House members of both parties. The session begins Jan. 8 — as Straus noted, “27 days from now.”